


bleeding bitter

by mnemememory



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, and Jester being cute, basically 2k of conversation, blink and you'll miss it romance, but let's be real when is Jester not cute, nothing happens but feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 07:57:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16280657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemememory/pseuds/mnemememory
Summary: Fjord and Yasha haven't had much of a chance to talk.(or; a 2k conversation about feelings)





	bleeding bitter

...

...

**bleeding bitter**

...

...

“You’ve been awfully quiet, lately.”

Yasha doesn’t look up from where she’s sharpening her sword, the metal smooth and reflective underneath her fingertips. They’re all huddled together under the pale light of Caleb’s magical tent, shivering against the chill of stale sea-air that is locked in with them in the cabin.

They’re sleeping in shifts. The early night had caught them all off guard, exhaustion weighing anchor around their necks and eyes as the sun beat gold and bronze against the silk-smooth sea. There isn’t a window, down here, but Fjord can imagine it – painted, vivid. He’s been looking out at the empty sea for years and years. He’s somehow managed to regain the old, easy rhythm these past few days as _Captain Tusktooth_ (holy shit he’s the Captain), salt in his lungs and the sun at his back. It’s at once brilliant and wretchedly horrifying.

“I haven’t had much to say,” Yasha says.

Jester and Beau are curled up in a tight knot off to the side, squishing up obnoxiously against an irate Caleb. Nott has latched herself onto Deuce’s fur, mask away, air whistling out sharply between her jagged teeth. Ghost words from thaumaturgy bleed through the air; _Uk’otoa_ hisses out in dead white noise.

Fjord watches them and feels the impression of his falchion in his hands, feels an itch to the back of his neck. He doesn’t take his eyes away from the door.

“I’m worried about you,” Fjord says. “I know this isn’t what you had intended, meeting up with us again.”

Yasha doesn’t reply. The soft _shing, shing, shing_ of her whetstone cuts through the air.

“And I’m worried about that eye,” he says. “And what it means.”

Yasha pauses briefly. Her eyes are latched onto the splinter-sharp edge of her sword. “You mean with Molly,” she says. It isn’t a question.

Fjord winces. He knows that Beau looks to him for…guidance…when it comes to matters of diplomacy, but he really isn’t the best choice. Well, generally – maybe he is with this group. And if that isn’t a horrifying thought, Fjord doesn’t know what is.

The point being, Fjord has never been good at talking to people. Worse, talking with Yasha one-on-one is like pulling teeth. Awkward, sweet teeth that could also turn around and stab you.

Fjord isn’t so great with metaphors, either.

“You said so yourself,” Fjord says, because if he is anything, he is persistent. “Molly had nine eye tattoos. I don’t think that they were quite like hers, but –”

“They weren’t,” Yasha says.

Fjord clears his throat. “I get the feeling,” he says, slowly. “That you’re angry with us.”

There it is.

Yasha’s pale chin jerks up, and something bright and furious flashes in her eyes for the split-second they lock vision. Then she’s ducking her head and pulling her shoulders up as high as they can go, hair swishing down to mask her face. The hand around the whetstone stiffens.

“I was not expecting,” she says, with less hesitation and more tightly controlled vernacular. “To see you again so soon.”

Fjord watches her closely. “’You’, as in the group?” he says. “Or ‘you’, as in, ‘me’.”

Yasha shakes her head and doesn’t answer.

The silence congeals between them, sour and uncomfortable. Fjord splits his attention between the door and Yasha, watching the way her features carve out shadow in the pale light of Caleb’s tent. She’s made of thick lines and sharp edges, teeth and bone.

(He’s seen her like this before.

Jester doesn’t remember – please, let Jester not remember – but Fjord does. Fjord remembers every second of every minute of every hour of every day they spent underground. He will never not remember, no matter how long he lives, for ever and ever.

He remembers Yasha, bleeding and angry and bright enough to hurt. She screamed, sometimes, but mostly she hadn’t said anything at all).

_Ul’otoa_ , the walls whisper.

“I’m sorry I let us get taken,” Fjord says. The words feel bloody, raw. He’s been trying to find the right thing to say for so long, but no matter how he does it, it fumbles on the tip of his tongue. It’s a novel experience, being so intimately aware of a feeling but being unable to conceptualise it. _Grief_ is close. _Shame_ might fit better. “I’m sorry I let you get taken. I should have been better. Three of us, we should have seen them. I’m sorry you weren’t there –”

Yasha looks up, and it’s enough to silence him. She stares him dead in the eye, face blank, and says, “I don’t care.”

Fjord can’t breathe.

“The first time I met Molly,” she says. “He was basically dead. There wasn’t anything in him. He said – over and over and over. _Empty_. That was all.”

This is the most that Fjord has ever heard Yasha say.

“About a – a month, after, we dragged him. Into a town. He had a name, and a face to put on. And clothes. And someone was laughing at him.”

She isn’t looking at him, anymore – she’s staring sightless in front of her, eyes unfocused.

“And he was very rude. So I did my job, and he didn’t bother either of us again.”

“Yasha, I’m –”

“So that’s my job,” Yasha says. It comes out in a rush, like she’s afraid that he’s going to drop her. “That…was my hob. Make sure he didn’t do anything. Reckless. Keeping him – keeping him – alive.”

Fjord closes his eyes. His jaw aches, filed-down tusks rubbing uncomfortably against his cheeks.

“I don’t know anything. Anything. About his tattoos,” she says. There’s a catch in her throat, but Fjord isn’t going to say anything for the life of him. “Not the ones from before, or after. We were staying at. It’s not important. I left for a few weeks, and I came back to him covered in bandages. And those eyes…”

“I can’t help but wonder if they’re connected somehow,” Fjord says. “It’d be an awful strange coincidence.”

Yasha bares her teeth. “Wouldn’t matter even if he was here,” she says. “He doesn’t remember shit.”

The words hit Fjord like a cold punch to the stomach; he can’t breathe around it, for a second.

Funny. Funny, they’ve been so careful with Molly – softening his name, choking back conversations into dull, twisted things. It’s a shock, hearing Yasha talk about him without any of the weight.

“No,” Fjord says, once he’s regained the ability to speak. “I don’t suppose he did.”

“I don’t want to know,” she says. “Not if he didn’t. I don’t want to know anything about – about Molly that Molly didn’t know.”

They stay like that for a long time. Quiet, if less violent. Yasha puts her sword carefully at her feet and pulls out her book, the one with flowers pressed into the pages. It’s thick, and old. Well, compared to some of the books in Caleb’s luggage. The man hoarded like nobody’s business – in their brief period together, Caleb has managed to stuff the equivalent of a small-town library into Jester’s haversack. She’s started complaining about being a pack-mule.

“I’m not angry with you,” Yasha says. There’s a tight, awkward set to her shoulders that she can’t quite seem to straighten you. “It’s not your fault.”

“You certainly weren’t happy to see us,” Fjord says.

Yasha shakes her head. “I was happy,” she says, and does not elaborate.

Teeth, Fjord thinks with a sigh. He enjoys the time they spend together, but it’s not exactly an easy flow of conversation. Silence works best for them, he’s found.

But right now, Fjord doesn’t want silence.

“We were very happy to see you,” he says. “Jester and Nott, especially. They’ve really missed you. we all have.”

Yasha hunches so far forward she’s almost bent double over her book. “I was happy,” she repeats, like it’s being pulled out of her. “I was. You are all very…nice, to be around.”

“But?”

Yasha’s voice is small. “When you have dreams,” she says. “What does it feel like?”

Fjord frowns and sits back, trying not to be thrown off by the non-sequester. He can’t think of how that could be relevant, but doesn’t want to interrupt the flow of conversation. And this is important, he thinks.

“It depends on the dream,” he says, feeling the words out as he goes. He wouldn’t say this to anyone else, he thinks. Not even to Beau. “Most of the time, I don’t understand anything that’s going on. There’s something right outside of what I’m seeing, but I can’t quite make it out. The first time –” Fjord falters.

Yasha doesn’t say anything, just watches him with hawkish eyes and a flat mouth. Fjord struggles to get himself under control, which is ridiculous. This is ridiculous.

“The first time I drowned,” he says, as firm as he is able. “It feels a little like the first time I drowned.”

“In my visions,” Yasha says. “I’m – small. The smallest thing in the world. And everything around me is – is beautiful, and powerful. There’s so much of it.”

“I can imagine, just a little,” Fjord says.  

“That’s what it felt like, when I saw you,” Yasha says. “Like that.”

“Yasha…”

“It’s not a bad feeling,” Yasha says. “But I wasn’t expecting it.”

Fjord glances over to their sleeping companions. Nott has wormed her way up from Deuce’s shoulder to be tucked up in his elbow, a content smile stretching over her lipless mouth. They both look obscenely adorable. Caleb has kicked his way out from under Jester and Beau and is stretched out next to them, peaceful. Predictably, Beau has succumbed to oxygen deprivation and is lying, limp, in Jester’s stronghold. And Jester –

Jester’s face is drawn into a half-smile, eyes closed, fangs peeking out from under her lips.

“I wasn’t exacting any of this,” he finds himself saying, not taking his eyes away from Jester. “It still doesn’t feel real, most of the time. I find myself waking up, and I think maybe I’m still asleep.”

“Is it a good dream, or a bad dream?”

Fjord shrugs. “It’s a dream.”

Yasha seems to understand. Her smile is small, almost invisible against the dramatic silhouette of her face. “This place is very dangerous.”

“I’ll take care of them,” Fjord says. “And you. I’ll take care of all of you. I mean, I’ll – I’ll try.”

“I know you will, Fjord,” Yasha says. She means it to come out as comforting, he can tell, but the words rub him the wrong way. He has to take a few steadying breaths against snapping back something at her. His temper has never been an easy thing to control, but here, especially with Yasha, he doesn’t want it to rear its ugly head.

“I promised Jester’s mother I’d try, at the very least,” he says.

Yasha’s eyebrow ticks up. There is less judgement to the expression than when worn on Beau’s face, but it’s still there all the same. “Meeting the family. That’s a big step.”

Fjord _gapes_ at her.

“Not you as well,” he says, shocked by this unexpected betrayal. “Please, not you as well. I get enough of this from Beau.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Yasha’s voice is very bland.

“You – you’re _worse_ than she is,” Fjord says.

“Not you’re just being insulting.”

…

…

“Fjord?”

“Wha – Jester?”

“Are you okay?”

Fjord peels open his eyes and squints into the soft darkness. Jester is sitting next to him, eyes wide and bright as stars. He groans and leans so that he’s resting on his elbows, simultaneously exhausted and wide awake.

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t think you’re okay,” Jester says.

Fjord looks around. Nott is off to the side, pretending to not be shamelessly eavesdropping. Everyone else looks asleep. It must be close to dawn – Jester and Nott had volunteered for the last shift on watch.

“I’m tired, Jester,” he says, closing his eyes. He lets his arms collapse underneath him, prepared to just pass out and be done with it. There’s salt in his lungs and seawater choking the back of his throat, and he can’t deal with being awake, not now. “Can’t we talk about this in the morning?”

Jester pokes his cheek. “Fjord. Fjord. Fjord.”

“Please don’t,” Fjord says.

Jester blows out a noisy sigh. Fjord is ninety-percent sure that the rest of the group is faking unconsciousness. Caleb’s eye keeps twitching.

“I just want you to know,” Jester says, voice loud enough that even if anyone _had_ been asleep before, they wouldn’t be now. The too-peaceful expression on Beau’s face just confirms Fjord’s suspicions. “That we love and support you with whatever you think is best, and if that means that we take out the sexy pirate lady, we take out the sexy pirate lady.”

“Wait, no –”

“And if that means running away so she doesn’t throw you to be eaten up by the weird tentacle fish-god who keeps coming into your dreams –”

“Jester –”

“Then that is what we will do.”

Fjord gives up. “Thank you, Jester.”

Jester’s smile is blinding. “You’re welcome, Fjord.”

Something nudges at his boot. Fjord looks down in time to see Yasha giving him a subtle thumbs-up.

**Author's Note:**

> I LIVE!
> 
> (sorry for the delay, guys. rn I'm basically a dead thing in human skin).
> 
> prompt fill for the lovely theclockistickingwrite on tumblr: Maybe Yasha and fjord have a conversation about Molly? Possibly related to his eye tattoos?
> 
> (it...evolved).
> 
> In any case, come say [hi](http://mnemememory.tumblr.com/) :) I'm always up to talking about Critical Role, and sometimes I post random shorts that don't rate ao3


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